The
Daily Cycle

The daily cycle of the seminar
is built on seven distinct, but interweaving sessions of different types. Each
of these derives from a specific source or pioneer and addresses a particular
aspect of the human process.

Experienting

Introduction
by Anthony Blake

The word experienting is a neologism
connecting experiment and experience. It is intended to mean experimenting with
the stuff of experience. The neologism is used primarily to distinguish the practice
from the general and largely vague way of meditation. The latter word is in its
origins an English equivalent of the Sanskrit dhyana which can be variously understood
as concentration or sustained thought , as opposed to dispersal and fluctuation.
However, meditation has become a generic term for sitting with closed eyes and
following some guided visualizations or recitation of a mantra.

The
present practice of experienting has emerged from work with techniques inherited
from John Bennett. These were then called morning exercises and derived in their
turn from indications from G. I. Gurdjieff with inputs from various other sources
such as Taoist and Sufi methods. Gurdjieff s own indications, as far as we know
them, were based on two main ingredients: (a) the distinction and fusion of I
and am , (b) the distinction and blending of sensation, feeling and thought. These
exercises were active on the part of the subject and they did not rely on images
but on some more direct sense of quality of energy.

Following
in this tradition, we have begun to explore what is essential in this active method.
To do so, we have had to depart from accepted practice in one important respect:
in the past, practitioners either did a set exercise in silence or were guided
through by an instructor. Indeed, being guided through by someone who had previously
established the exercise in him was and is considered to be the right way of being
initiated into the exercise. With Mr. Bennett, we had groups doing an exercise
who met at other times and were able to report on their experiences and ask questions.
Our main departure from this tradition has been to allow and even encourage comments
to be made by any participant during the exercise or experienting. Though one
person directs the session, he or she is open to what is proceeding in the rest
of the people.

This means that (a) the exercise itself
is exploratory and is not a member of a set canon, and (b) any statements made
by participants feeds back into the process through the guiding person. In an
idealistic sense, the guide could be seen as the voice of the people , bringing
to expression what is emergent in them as it happens.

The
generic form of experienting first looks into containment in various ways, such
as presence , location , body , perception , etc. - and then looks into what differentiations
can be made in the stuff of experience within the container. The kind of differentiation
made depends on background understanding of the human composition. Still, for
the most part, we follow the guidelines of a threefold distinction, crudely understood
in terms of thought , feeling and sensation.

What
an experienting is about cannot be defined apart from those who are actively engaged
in it. We feel it is important to follow the indications of Rumi, for example,
whose phrase fihi ma fihi ( in it what is in it ) sums up the hermeneutic approach
we follow. It is very important indeed for all those involved to seek out and
continue to seek out the essential meaning of what they do and not rely on the
person in the authority role to define meaning for them.

It
came to me that here was something integral to what the 'exercise' IS. I now believe
that having, for example as may happen, a diversity of descriptions is a great
benefit. The whole idea that 'we' did the 'same thing' needs to be held in question
(though not dismissed out of hand).

I will just say
that my guiding initiative or the main influence upon me at the time this was
designed came from meeting an old friend, another student of Bennett, who was
giving a series of lectures on mysticism according to the four main levels of
'mental energy'. I was constantly occupied with the question of moving between
different levels without being fixated on what these were, i.e. it was not coming
from a mental model. There is some general kind of pattern concerning the state
of the facilitator and that of the participants.

We
are just at the beginning of something that I do not think has been addressed
very much before.

Experiences

The
hypothesis of experienting is that the "stuff" of experience thought,
sensation, feeling can be objectified, spoken of, and thereby shaped. It is similar
to what was formerly known as Morning Exercise or Sitting, except that this year
an important distinction was made between operating from a mental model and participating
in an action. It was therefore an experiment in participation where members of
the group, using the practice of self-observation, actually tried to describe
what was happening for them in the moment.

For me
writing these words on the page like this deprives it of its essence, sucking
the life out of it. It becomes intellectual, a mental model, and sounds like every
other "meditation" that is described prescriptively or retrospectively.
What we need for this is a virtual reality module into which each reader could
enter, participate, and change the shape of the whole.

However,
with this limited tool I can at least try to describe my experience. The first
awareness is that of "waiting." Waiting because this is not something
that one does, per se. It is an experience that comes, that surrounds,
that becomes a container. This container is, at first, the body, sheathed in skin,
coursing blood, held by bones and muscles. We can experience this physical containment,
experiment with it. The quality of attention becomes important here. Deliberate
random movements, at first external then internal, keep one from passing over
into dreaming. These movements first pass unnoticed, then are noticed, then deliberately
made, and are accepted into a larger container.

And
there is the world "outside" sights, smells, sounds, the feeling of
the air across the body. And that becomes the container, accepted into the container,
finally used to fuel the container because, after all, they are here now as well.

And
then you see that it is, after all, only like remembering and forgetting it really
is nothing new. It is something you have known all along, but forgotten. You slip
back into the remembering, and when you forget you remember you have forgotten
and are remembering again.

From here any number of
journeys can be taken, shaped, and described. For me the speaking was very difficult.
I wanted to try it because it was an interesting experiment, intellectually. But
I was afraid of diminishing my own experience and, even more important, that of
the others. But the few times I tried it, speaking felt similar to opening my
eyes, which was also very difficult. Both seem to ground the experience in everyday
reality, making it more possible to, later and in reverse, bring the "knowing"
into the ordinary experiences of one s life.

********

I
was in a semi-meditative state during these early morning sessions. The "stuff"
of experience I experimented with was the containment of my developmental quest,
which till Sweet Briar was insanely synoptic but lacked depth of intelligence,
in other words, considered thought and emotional commitment. The medallion design
of the room's oriental rug became a container. It was colorful, seemingly chaotic,
but ordered. It had horizontal and vertical symmetry flowing artistically out
of a tetradic center. The border was escalloped providing openings permeable to
the outside world. There were many small blossoms within the medallion suggesting
molecules of meaning for me. The molecules were related to each other through
different patterns.

As the week unfolded, I realized
my medallion or mandala was a horizontal plane. It lacked a deep foundation of
meaning and thus showed-up in my life as helter-skelter. As a result of Sweet
Briar, my quest has taken on new form. Stop filling-in the tapestry of ideas and
concentrate on awakening intelligence and making meaning.

********

The
experience of "sitting", "meditating", of stilling the body,
and the mind, and "relaxing" into receptivity (an infinite set of nestling
Russian dolls), has come to be for me, a state of "multiple states of awareness",
"attention", "tense-less intensity, "non-dimensional extensive-ness",
"consciousness without an object", Self-Remembering", being in
my/group "common presence"-- Presence. To describe the sustaining of
this state implies for me the use of contradictions, and yet, the tension of contradictions
is not this experience.

In our "experienting"
sessions, I found myself mostly in a quandary, in regard to speaking from and
about the state. I felt split between time/space which language seems to belong
to for me, and the non-time/space, which seems to have silence/stillness as its
physical expression. I became fascinated by the possibilities, which the practice
of this exercise -- experienting -- presents.

A metaphor:
One is juggling 3 balls, and over time increases the number of balls one is juggling.
The attention is never on one or another ball, rather on the juggling. Conceivably,
one can juggle, after a while, 3 or a dozen balls. This is "sitting"
-- Presence. But if one has to eat a meal while juggling, or carry on a conversation,
then a new level of juggling is required. This would be "experienting".

I
found myself, on the occasional times that I was able to find my voice, "dropping
the balls" so to speak. To speak of the "State" while in it was
for me, not unlike the experience of trying to do the Movements. For me, these
exercises have lead to deeper flexibility in Working in ordinary life. In other
words, more and more, it is less and less about going from one thing to another.
Ordinary life itself is becoming for me, something of what Experienting and the
Movements have been. I am seeing how it is precisely what I was attempting to
do in the experienting sessions, that is what I want to do in my day in day out
living -- move, speak, act, respond, do in and from Presence.

********

I
am a minimalist with words when trying to communicate the sacred. This was a time
for me to link cellular awareness with mind and intention to work containing the
contents of life. This time we spent experimenting together was one important
component in the architecture of the group.

********

Spending
six early mornings with kindred souls was as close to a community experience as
I felt it might EVER be. Especially so as the week evolved with our diverse opportunities
to be together and share. The pristine setting of the room in the freshness of
early morning became a very precious space, perhaps because it was only used for
our quiet sittings. The architecture and furnishings - especially the wonderful
colorings and design of the marvelous rug - contributed to the uniqueness of the
setting. I felt a deep sense of awareness, of tranquility, or sharing deeply,
of harmony, of bonding in a special way I had never known before.

********

For me
the "experienting" process begins the "deeper" communication
for the day

between the members of the group, other
"worlds", and ourselves. Some of these communications are expressed
and shared during other events of the day, some carry over and some, also, illuminate
our personal experiences. This process creates the basic structure of our week
together.

?It occurred to me recently that I use the
meditation on what I'm experiencing in the moment frequently when I am too wound
up to relax and go to sleep at night. I take my attention out of my intellectual
center and focus on what I'm experiencing in my moving center and that allows
my mind to quiet down. I sometimes employ imagination in that effort. It works
for me.

********

The
"experienting for me was different yet familiar to other exercises I have
done.

I have done exercises involving concentrating
sensations to different parts of the body and meditation with eyes open and closed,
but never just being there, in the present and being open to what happens, letting
all "input" (noises, the air on your skin, thoughts, body sensations)
flow through the awareness. After 20 minutes or so, vision would change in and
out in a kind of dimming extra-peripheral vision. At these times I was aware of
every flicker of movement of everyone without concentrating. This would fade in
and out much the same way thoughts flowed in and away. With eyes closed there
would be shapes with sometimes intense colors, which would again, fade in and
out. I was hesitant about speaking during the period for fear of the enhanced
state disappearing, although I think now that it is a way to further ground the
experience, much in the way open eyes prevents the time with closed eyes from
becoming a dream state. I think there were similarities between this and ILM and
dialogue.

Social
Dreaming Matrix

Dreams as "Group
Dreams"

That images and themes would be shared
in the dreams of those participating in a group endeavor, as they were in our
dreams, was for me not as remarkable as that the dreams themselves were reflecting
something of the underlying dynamic (unconscious) of the Group. The presenter
in the case of the "group dream" was no more than the person reading
the dream. In reading "my" dream, it lost its "my-ness" and
was as if in fact it had been "dreamt" by the Group. Whereas typically
my own dreams have initially remained opaque to me, those of others often are
easier to see into, making it possible to draw from them, meaningful insights.
The dreams I read in the Group lent themselves to view without the opacity that
faces me on initial approach to my own dreams. They carried for me the feel of
the dream of an "other", in this case the "Group", and spoke
to me of what was taking place in the Group at its unconscious level. A good example
of that, was the dream that had felt more personal to me and because of that I
did not plan to present it. But when I did read it on Karen s urging, that dream
became for me, a Group dream.

In this way I became
aware that there was in this Group a field of someThing
other than me or us. This was evident to me in the other sessions as well. There
were, to my way of seeing, correspondences in our collages as well, and they also
spoke to me of the Group Dynamic, and not just of my dynamic in the Group.

I
saw the Group as a "container" and much more than that. It played the
role of "mediator" and "generator" of an "energy"
that "in-formed" and maybe even "created". It was palpable
in the "Experienting" sessions as well as in the Dialogue sessions.
On a couple of occasions I saw the Group "work" in the Structural Communication
sessions and in Movements.

The potential in the "entity"
that is The Group, the Group born from us in which we participated, worked in,
through, from, and with, seems to be enormous, and the dreams that the Group dreams
can be real doors to discovering the possibilities inherent in the Group and which
the Group gives to us.

Conti

Reflections
on the Social Dreaming Matrix

Dreaming to me has
always seemed to be a personal, individual, unconnected, solitary process. One
is reluctant to share all of the intense feelings, emotions and strange
inexplicable occurrences in dreams for the fear of what they may say about you
personally. You may be unmasked by your revelations. In social dreaming there
are no "personal" dreams, only the dreams of the group, interpretations
are meant to apply to the group and there can be as many interpretations shared
as there are people in the group. Each brings their own interpretation to the
shared meaning of the dream and in so doing helps unite the group thought. The
sharing of the dreams forms a connection between dreamers which individual/solitary
dreaming cannot make, especially when the dreams involve intensely emotional and
personal sequences.

In the actual practice of the
Social Dreaming Matrix I was surprised at the often-common images and occurrences-death,
funerals, futile activities, religious artifacts, secrets, forgotten anguish.

For
me, the telling of the dreams was a catharsis. When there were uneasy feelings
or reservations about images or people in the dream, they disappeared when spoken.
The dreams became material and were able to be shared by the group as opposed
to remaining in imagination (very similar to using the MM s to make thoughts material
in structural communications). There were also several times, when emotional response
was strong, when I was able to watch myself read my own dream, as an observer.
I see real value in the process in creating a connection from dreaming, a process
which many dismiss as not real, or imaginary, which in our modern world, translates
into "of no value". I see a similarity between sharing of personal dreams/feelings
and the sharing of responses to experienting during the process.

Craig

The Movements

At
the 2000 Sweet Briar Conference that was held the last full week of June,
one of the activities that we pursued was "movements". The
movements are a combination of body movements, and sometimes "inner work", that
are constructed in such a way so that we can't "think about them as we
are doing them". It is necessary to let the body do the work.
G.I. Gurdjieff brought these "movements" to the west at the beginning
of the twentieth century.

For most of the time during the week we worked
on "Number 2". It is part of the series of movements that
Gurdjieff designed and Thomas De Hartman wrote the music for. Number
2 is a long and advanced movement. It works not only with the body, but with
the "inner man", too. I played the piano for the movements.
The group, though inexperienced, worked with depth and the right attitude.
The efforts made by the movements teacher, Tony Blake, in trying to give the
participants a "taste" of the movements before we began working
on Number 2 helped a great deal.

Annasue

Tissue
Paper Collage

Tissue paper collage.

On
first seeing the marvelous colors of the paper set out for use, it strikes me
that nothing I can do could improve on that impact. However the seduction of the
color combinations and the moods they can conjure up - restful; dramatic, unsettling, joyful,
and so on and on - becomes irresistible and the messing about begins.
Most of the time I was trying to get an effect intentionally.

Those
people who worked fast were working in the original spirit of the practice, which
I understand to be material for use in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy, in
a similar way to "doodles" or ink spots. I find it
very difficult not to have an image or vision or effect in mind that I try
to work towards, which defeats that object. Perhaps
we should have given more time to reading those who produced a good quantity
of collages quite spontaneously and without considering, rather than the labored
results of a few like mine; not being a trained psychoanalyst, or therapist, I
would have found that very interesting.

My
efforts at home without Karen's essential discipline, have drifted further
and further into intentional "pictures" when someone asks for a
specific subject. These are enormous fun and sometimes quite pleasing
- best when I can stay between intent and spontaneity, just keeping
the subject at the very back of my mind only. I was asked for
something suitable for a Healing Group's meeting room. I was quite
surprised at what came out with no hint of a 'subject' in them. They were
accepted as suitable, to my relief. How can one make a painting or
drawing of "healing" in a conventional manner that has any
meaning. Not me anyway!

Carol

Median Group Dialogue

Source: Blake, A. G. E., Harvard Club and Sweet Briar
Two Thousand/jw

Assumption:
your own meaning-signal can be boosted by engaging in an environment of other
meaning-signals no matter if at first these other signals (like the music in
ILM) appear to have no relevance at all; your own meaning-signal can come
into resonance with that of others if you allow the sequence of speaking to unfold
without imposed controls

Method: people
gather to speak according to what emerges for them to speak (and when to speak);
there is no leader or theme; there are no rules of order

Operation:
as far as possible, participants keep in touch with what is happening right here
and now rather than in the usual habits of speech referring back to memories,
expressing opinions or theories, laying down the law, solving problems, etc.;
just let it flow

Result: we emphasize
flow as a third important characteristic of meaning and dialogue can result
in greater facility with flow which enhances rapid communication and constant
updating into the present moment

The three
principles of boosting, resonance and flow cover most of the phenomena of meaning-connectivity.
They introduce you into the web of meaning, which always remains open, explorative
and enabling creative fusion. Active information must act and cannot be
collected in static (passive) repositories. Given adequate meaning bandwidth,
you can utilize any medium to effect.

Tips
on Median Groups From Patrick de Mare and Blake

Enter
into the experience that others are creating for you. Accept the being of a person,
their integrity. Challenge for the sake of truth. Address questions in framework
and intent of the speaker. Anything said must come from a place of feelings and
intellect and have meaning for the speaker. Recognize different levels of intensity
and quality. Facilitate higher levels of intensity by affirming, negating, mediating,
enhancing, refining, and clarifying. Put yourself actively in the situation. Take
a risk. Bear pain of contradiction. Do not accept any terminology or framework
to be adequate. Do not fix roles in the group. Be natural, individual, immediate
and concrete. Learn to be careful with your language, to use words correctly

It
is a free floating group discussion. The group has no agenda and no leader. It
does have a convener but not a facilitator.

Kinship
has to do with blood relationships. Kith refers to neighbors, to social dimensions.
Kithship has to be cultivated. It is not instinctual.

Structural
Communication and The Hexagonia Game

Source:
Blake A. G. E. Harvard Club and Sweet Briar Two Thousand/ jw

Introduction
to Structural Communication

Assumption: you
are able to grasp a whole complex of meanings in an implicate way, that can be
made explicate by a structured communication

Method:
the complex field of meanings is articulated as an array of distinct molecules
of meaning , which are then used to design answers or interpretations in response
to questions, which responses can be tested for critical combinations of inclusion
and exclusion.

Operation: the student
responds to questions and his or her responses elicit further information; the
feedback keeps the student in suspension (does not tell him or her that they are
right or wrong about any one factor) allowing him or her to enlarge bandwidth
in the act of coming to understand what the author sees

Result:
the field of meaning is seen in depth by the structured process of participation,
such that the bandwidth of meaning is increased

Going
into depth from the surface field of meaning expands bandwidth and is experienced
as understanding. The surface field is that of basic semantics knowing what the
words mean. Understanding is reflected in being able to handle the meaning of
items in combination, in relation to different contexts.

The Hexagonia Game: A Visual Tool for Structured Communication

Basic
Ideas

Molecules of Meaning, MMs, can be mapped
out to display a combined meaning that expresses an idea or argument. The way
we map reveals our worldview, how we make sense of things and what is real for
us.

Ideas can be broken down into subsidiary thoughts.
Relationships between thoughts can take five forms:

Focus:
showing the core or pivotal thought by placing in a central position.

Contrast:
showing oppositions between thoughts by linking with a solid line.

Facets:
showing complementary aspects similar to the aboveby linking with a double
arrow.

Movements: showing direction
of argument this leading to that by using single arrows.

Rotation:
showing lateral thoughts by writing the thoughts at right angles to each other.

Visual
technology enables us to project our thoughts into a common space. It is visual
because the most effective way of doing this is to make something that can be
seen and read. If a group of people project their thoughts this way, then each
of them can see what the others think. The shared space enables the group to talk
about what their thoughts mean. This includes how they are related and what they
imply in terms of action that can be taken. Thinking, then, is an active reflection
- on the thoughts we are aware of.

The ability to
move the thought objects about allows the group to see new and different kinds
of connections. The use of magnetic media in hexagon form aids the mobility of
thought and the discovery of new relationships, which leads to further questions.
Thinking is a movement and not a static state.

The
greatest power of visual technology is in enabling a group of people to engage
with each other s thinking.

Method

Step
1: Create individual Molecules of Meaning MMs using consistent phrasing. Make
the meaning as clear as possible. Write each MM on a magnetic hexagon tile.

Step
2: Create a knowledge soup by placing all hexagons on the magnetic board in random
order.

Step 3: Develop patterns of meaning by linking
and finding relationships between the posted MMs.

Look
for focus, contrast, facets, movements and rotation.

Ask
questions of the assemblage that can be answered by a subset of the array

In
grouping the MMs be prepared to explain what was included and what was excluded.

As the process proceeds, refine the MMs and add new
ones as needed.

Study the blank spots and think what
might be missing. Add

For each pattern of relationships,
develop an overview statement or headline that captures your conclusion.

Record
your results on paper. Then recombine the MMs in the search for new meaning. Repeat
the process until the potential combinations and interpretations are exhausted

Blake-Based Molecules of Meaning

(Potential product or service offerings from JW notes
during Structured Communication Sessions)

1.
Eliciting Median Group Dialogue

2. Creating and Experiencing
the Emergence a Group Culture

3. Structural Communication

4.
Movements for Constipated Managements

5. Sytematics
for Organizational Design

6. Awakening Creative Intelligence

7.
Tuning-up the Aesthetic with Karen s Kollage

8. Creating
Conditions for Emergence and Self Organization

9.
Toponomics, the Study of Place

10. Baltimore Explorations

11.
Event Design for Creative Emergence

12. Intelligent
Enneagram

13. Experienting (meditation)

14.
Awakening of Democracy

Note: Good documentation
exists for most of these modules

Immediate Learning Method

ILM
(immediate learning method, or instant local meaning)

Assumption:
you have in you a meaning-signal, which contains new and needed active information
that, in your usual working context, is so, obscured by interference that you
cannot read it (but perhaps feel it as a kind of background)

Method:
you immerse yourself in an environment of music, or images, or many such things
at the same time, as a source of meaning-signals that can combine with your own
and enhance its strength

Operation:
as your meaning-signal is enhanced and you begin to register it, it evolves to
reach higher levels

Result: eventually,
the process becomes one of creative instants which you can store as holographic
forms that you can re-create at any future time by active imagination.

Comments
on ILM (Instant Learning Method) Sweet Briar 2000

"The
hillsss are alive... with the sound of muuussic..." This line from the popular
musical, deserves special emphasis on the words, "are alive", and reminds
me of the brilliant picture of life made available through the ILM, and through
the direct contact with meaning it affords us.

The
hills, may be considered our usual ways of listening to music, but they are allowed
to "come alive", by perceiving music in this new way, and, there is
definitely "gold in them there hills"! This method allows the music
to speak of many possibilities and meanings that are not made aware by casual
listening habits; however, I don't think the composer of the Sound of Music would
have ever gone for a chorus of: "The hills become aware... through the media
of music..." It just doesn't flow, ya know.

I
tend to liken ILM to a kind of divination for gold anyway, the treasure being
a certain kind of illumination buried in the hills of our awareness, which can
be communicated through the sound structures of music. I walk over these hills,
trying to divine insight into my personal inquiries. Now maybe I will try walking
a different road toward discovery. A vast terrain is available for this divination,
and, like the meaning hidden between the lines of the music that we engage with,
the terrain is hiding it's gold in the form of possible insights and answers.

It
is much like investigating some unexplored territory when using ILM. The hills
of awareness do indeed come alive when we put forth a Need to get a response to
our inquiries, and by holding onto that need throughout the dialogue we develop
with the creative media of sound. Our awareness is the divinator. The sound becomes
the divining rod, and is the instrument used to magnetize itself toward the illumination
of the object of our exploration. Illumination detected through the structure
of the music. Using music in this way is the act of "panning", and like
water flowing through the sieve of a gold miner s pan, the sound leaves behind
nuggets of information and meaning which may enter our perception by way of an
unaccustomed portal that opens in the awareness. This act reminds me of how often
our creative environment is speaking to our needs through the ever-present media
that surrounds us, and also how often it is that I am not tuned in to that communication!
That is why I say the "portal" is unaccustomed. Using a special language,
meaning and information enter through this opening.

Sound
turns to light, illuminating those questions and answers that we hold. There is
the need to know, there is the music, and there is a questioning. The music sets
these in motion. Even the room we are in, and the presence of the other divinators,
join in this movement of dialogue, and in the center of this motion is a stillness,
where the question unfolds into meaning.

From the
perspective of this still center the portal opens. The whole environment is speaking
something to me. The music concentrates this language, as I converse with something
that is trying to shed light on the essence of my investigation. Through this
opening comes a knowing of potentials and possibilities relating to my need. I
now try to understand what it is I need to know.

You
could see this in terms of a painting, where the music sets up a particular kind
of sonic canvas, which is used to peek into the areas of our exploration. The
opening of our perception during ILM allows the information we gather to brush
onto our canvas, as we try to grasp the resultant painting. I want to behold the
emergent meaning lying behind these brushstrokes.

On
a certain practical level, our reality and life circumstances, can be seen as
the combination of arrays consisting of myriad different possible realities, which
when finally realized, produce various outcomes within our lives. With ILM, I
can begin a unique exploration of these possibilities' combinations and construction
that may bring forth a new picture of reality relating to my inquiry that is Ideal
for my current need. In my view, this can also aid toward forming a reconciliation,
or a resolution, of these infinite possibilities. I need perspective in order
to achieve this. From this perspective, I may observe, or even help shape by means
of my perception, this new picture of reality consisting of these resolutions,
a picture that also will hopefully result in a much deeper understanding of the
meaning within life.

That which speaks to one during
this method, seems to use a unique language to shed its light on our investigation.
Something in me knows this language. There is a mystery in just where the language
comes from. Right now, I hear crickets chirping and some traffic noise outside
the window. Shall I attempt to engage in a dialogue with it? Yes, it seems even
with these sounds, there is something there, within the structure of them, which
is speaking to me. The thing is, can I remember the language of that which speaks?
Can I understand in fullness the meaning that is being communicated?

Anthony
S

Reflections
on the Design of the Workshop (Saturday night dialogue)

1.
We practiced containment by keeping to the times in the schedule. There was spontaneous
interaction between the seven aspects of the daily cycle throughout the day and
the week.

?William Isaacs defines a container for
dialogue as a "vessel or setting in which the intensities of human interaction
can safely emerge."

2. I viewed the whole week
as a much-needed onslaught on traditional, encrusted conceptual programming. It
provides me with a pathway to depth and creative intelligence. It was a deconditioning
experience.

3. Physicality (touch, heft, movement,
placing, tearing, gluing) is an important ingredient in awakening creative intelligence.
The physical movement of the Magnote hexagons stimulated the making of new connections.
In contrast, once something is written on a flip chart it is fixed.

4.
Bennett s Systematics, which was referred to on occasion, is not an ideological
fix; it is set of structured tools for discovering patterns, relationships and
insights, all of which leads to new meaning. The geometric forms, which represent
terms from 1 (monad) though 4 (tetrad) to 9 (enneagram), are the mnemonics of
earlier times. They help to stimulate the thought process.

Note
that the structure of writing music occurred in the west.

5.
In the awakening of intelligence in a group, participants individually acquire
a vividness that enables a special contribution.

6.
Logovisual technology operates at three levels:

Meaning
Will

Visual Being

Technology
- Function

7. Event Design. Using the enneagram form,
one can array the seven steps of the daily cycle around the perimeter of the circle.
And then in true enneagram-process fashion explore the pattern of interrelationships
between steps.

Reflections
on Returning Home (Sunday morning dialogue)

1.
We experienced the creating of a multi dimensional culture in a week s time. It
takes structured time, cycles of diverse but reinforcing activity, and hard work.Duversity helps us make it up, to create our own identity and culture vs.
be bogged down by traditional culture.

2. We
now face a transition to a disparate reality. We should note how life appears
different.

3. We enjoyed contributing to the practices
and the future of Duversity. The facilitators stayed in their role throughout.

4.
To assimilate this experience, to achieve closure and to reenergize self, each
must take action and experiment with the learning. Find your own way of doing
it. Do not follow Tony s rules.

5. Dialogue
in the Median Group can seem elusive, but it is what people do and things move
forward. Making present higher intelligence is the coalescence of the diversity
between people. You cannot separate learning something from doing something.

6.
Seasons of Awakening, every period has it s own quality. How might this apply
to the Duversity year? Similarly can we design the Duversity year using a structure
similar to the Working Group?

7. Fill-in the blanks

B
________

L earning

A
wakening

K _________

E
nergizing

8.

K
ollaging

A _________

R
econciling

E _________

N
_________

Experiments with the Learning, Future
Possibilities and Connections

1.The Egypt
Trip with John Anthony West October 22 November 7, 2000

2.
The next Working Group possibly scheduled for early December 2000.

3.
A Working Group scheduled fro June 2000

3. Jim W s
follow-up experimental activity:

Did movements, collage,
and hexagonia with grandchildren. They loved it.

Still
cleaning-up.

Tried median dialogue, hexagonia and
collage with management group of a retirement community.

Dialogue
was the most valued session. Used clusters of hexagons to summarize the session.

Used
two pages of hexagon clusters to restate the conclusions of a 26 page consulting
report. New insights popped out.

Tried to organize
a session between Tony B. and JGB-oriented consultants.

Final
Comment on Sweet Briar Event

It was a wonderful group
of people, some old friends it was good to see again, some new friends that it
was good to get to know and a good group to dialog with and share experiences
with. Toni's ideas are always stimulating and Karen's activities take me
to a place I don't visit often enough. The campus is a wonderful environment
and as a client of mine is fond of saying in reflection after an all day meeting,
"lunch was good."